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Speaking Freely in a Time of War
Dr.
Barry Mauer I have received several letters filled with anti-speech arguments against critics of the Iraq War. In this essay, I address some of the logos (logic) in these arguments, and also the ethos (attempts to establish the writer's character) and pathos (attempts to elicit emotion) in these arguments. My goal is to expose their hidden premises, the parts that are implicit but left unstated. By exposing these hidden premises, I will demonstrate that the anti-speech arguments used against critics of the war are not sound. Most deductive arguments do not use complete syllogisms (which are three-part arguments with a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion). Rather, they use enthymemes, which are syllogisms with at least one part unstated. Using enthymemes is a time-honored tradition. Some of the best arguments use them, but some of the worst arguments do, too. If the point is to deceive others into accepting a weak claim, then enthymemes are ideal, because they allow the rhetor to hide the weakest parts of the argument.
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